What’s interesting in he news today?
Open Thread.
1. Hillary has some ‘splainin’ to do.
From TheWashingtonPost “The New York Times reported Monday night that, during her tenure at the State Department, Hillary Clinton never used her official e-mail account to conduct communications, relying instead on a private e-mail account. As the Times notes, only official accounts are automatically retained under the Federal Records Act, meaning that none of Clinton’s e-mail communication was preserved.
In March 2013, an adviser to Clinton, Sidney Blumenthal, had his e-mail hacked by “Guccifer” — the Romanian hacker perhaps best known for revealing George W. Bush’s paintings to the world. At the time, Gawker reported that Blumenthal was communicating with an account that appeared to belong to Clinton at the “clintonemail.com” domain. The content of some of those e-mails was published by RT.com.
Examining the registry information for “clintonemail.com” reveals that the domain was first created on Jan. 13, 2009 — one week before President Obama was sworn into office, and the same day that Clinton’s confirmation hearings began before the Senate.”
This isn’t an occasional email sent on a private account, this is all of them. Same as the head of the EPA and others. There’s a pattern here of Obama admin officials trying to circumvent oversight.
Officials investigating Hillary over Benghazi say she has other personal accounts as well, and they want to see them too.
More here, from Politico
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2. And yes, it’s illegal.
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3. Patreus has pled guilty to charges related to the sharing of sensitive info with his lover. This is the same charge Hillary should be looking at.
From TheNYTimes “David H. Petraeus, the best-known military commander of his generation, has reached a plea deal with the Justice Department and admitted providing his highly classified journals to a mistress when he was the director of the C.I.A.
Mr. Petraeus has agreed to plead guilty to one count of unauthorized removal and retention of classified material, a misdemeanor. He is eligible for up to one year in prison, but prosecutors will recommend a sentence of probation for two years and a $40,000 fine.
The plea deal completes a spectacular fall for Mr. Petraeus, a retired four-star general who was once discussed as a possible candidate for vice president or even president. He led the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and was the architect of a counterinsurgency strategy that at one time seemed a model for future warfare.”
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4. As is typical of Republican leadership, they’re snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. If only they had the guts of Reid. Then they would have used his “nuclear option” and done this right. But since Boehner and the establishment crowd support Obama’s amnesty plan anyway, they think this provides them cover to punt it to the courts. That’s not leadership, it’s pathetic. Boehner has to go.
More on that here, from NationalReview
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Wandering Views 
#2 Ain’t nothing illegal for a Clinton. You should know that by now.
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The more we know, the worse it gets…
http://bigstory.ap.org/article/b78ba433af3a45209668f745158d994c/clinton-ran-homebrew-computer-system-official-emails
“The computer server that transmitted and received Hillary Rodham Clinton’s emails — on a private account she used exclusively for official business when she was secretary of state — traced back to an Internet service registered to her family’s home in Chappaqua, New York, according to Internet records reviewed by The Associated Press.
The highly unusual practice of a Cabinet-level official physically running her own email would have given Clinton, the presumptive Democratic presidential candidate, impressive control over limiting access to her message archives. It also would distinguish Clinton’s secretive email practices as far more sophisticated than some politicians, including Mitt Romney and Sarah Palin, who were caught conducting official business using free email services operated by Microsoft Corp. and Yahoo Inc.
Most Internet users rely on professional outside companies, such as Google Inc. or their own employers, for the behind-the-scenes complexities of managing their email communications. Government employees generally use servers run by federal agencies where they work.
In most cases, individuals who operate their own email servers are technical experts or users so concerned about issues of privacy and surveillance they take matters into their own hands. It was not immediately clear exactly where Clinton ran that computer system.”
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Who is Eric Hoteham?
http://washington.cbslocal.com/2015/03/04/clinton-private-server-listed-under-mysterious-untraceable-name/
“It remains unclear exactly who set up and maintained the private email server for Clinton, but the AP traced it back to Eric Hoteham – a mysterious identity that “does not appear in public records databases, campaign contribution records or Internet background searches.”
However, Hoteham’s name is listed as a customer at the Clinton’s $1.7 million estate on Old House Lane in Chappaqua. The records have been registered for the Internet address for her email server since August 2010 and Hoteham is also listed as someone associated with the website “presidentclinton.com” and a defunct address for “wjcoffice.com.”
As of Wednesday, several fake Twitter accounts had been created representing the “Eric Hoteham” personality.”
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Hmmmmm…..
http://hotair.com/archives/2015/03/03/hm-hillary-was-warned-on-over-private-e-mail-use-security/
“Several have wondered, surely there was someone in the Clinton orbit who said, “Hey, maybe it’s not the greatest idea ever for you to ignore federal records acts, never get a government e-mail, and so obviously hide everything you do during your tenure at the State Department.” Well, there wasn’t anyone close enough to her to care to get the message through, apparently, but there was someone. Lowly IT guy, take a bow:
State Department technology experts expressed security concerns that then–Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was using a private email service rather than the government’s fortified and monitored system, but those fears fell on deaf ears, a current employee on the department’s cybersecurity team told Al Jazeera America on Tuesday.
The employee, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of losing his job, said it was well known that Clinton’s emails were at greater risk of being hacked, intercepted or monitored, but the warnings were ignored.
“We tried,” the employee said. “We told people in her office that it wasn’t a good idea. They were so uninterested that I doubt the secretary was ever informed.”
The Clinton e-mail address at issue had in fact already been revealed by a previous hacking:”
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This is another example, I’m afraid, of how Carson manages to talk off the cuff and get himself quickly cornered to the delight of twitter users everywhere. There are ways to discuss this issue without leaving yourself wide open like this.
(And what I’ve heard actually contradicts what he says — that straight prisoners will practice homosexuality but then return to heterosexual relationships once they’re out, — so it may indicate a ‘choice’ in some instances out of necessity of circumstances, but it’s hardly an argument that it’s an attraction that is strictly a choice for everyone; I suspect that these attractions, while maybe not genetic — although maybe they are, in part — become rooted so early in life that they often “feel” more like a hard-wired destiny than a pure choice to the person affected.)
At any rate, Carson would do well to be more careful in how he discusses issues. One can still be honest about their beliefs without getting into a mess with the way they phrase things (and without more thorough research and thought?).
http://www.politico.com/story/2015/03/ben-carson-gay-choice-prison-115744.html
“Ben Carson, the retired neurosurgeon and potential Republican presidential candidate, said Wednesday that ‘a lot of people who go into prison straight, and when they come out they’re gay.’
“The remarks were made on CNN’s “New Day” in response to a question from host Chris Cuomo, who asked if Carson thought being gay was a ‘choice.’ … “
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Chief Justice John Roberts: Let’s see how he rules in the current Obamacare case before the court. Maybe he’ll get it right, like broken clocks occasionally do; or maybe he’ll confirm how voting for the lesser of two evils doesn’t work ever never ever.
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Donna, on the ‘straight before prison, gay after’ story. I read the theory from a prison expert that men who are ‘straight’ turn to homosexuality while in prison out of need for sexual release; but he wasn’t the type of expert anyone would want on their side. I read it from a book by Rudolph Hoess, published under the title Death Dealer: The Memoirs of the SS Kommandant at Auschwitz. As you know, I read first hand accounts for history purposes. The man was a pathological liar when it came to explaining his motivations (he wrote the memoir while awaiting execution in a Polish prison); but his facts have been shown to be accurate in the main from other independent sources. In addition to all the horrifying details on the genocides of Jews and Gypsies that he supervised, he has quite a lot to say about the homosexuals not only at Auschwitz, but also when he was imprisoned by the Weimar Republic for murder as an early member of Hitler’s Brown Shirts. He distinguished between ‘”inborn” homosexuals and those who just did it for release. It made me wonder if people realize just who thought up some of our modern psychological constructs.
By way of contrast, I found this man’s perspective on homosexual orientation refreshingly different (you need to watch the whole interview): http://www.worldmag.com/2015/02/david_benkof_the_150_year_old_identity.
Unrelated question, except by name association, I’ve come across a rumour that Ben Carson is a Seventh Day Adventist? Anyone know if it’s true?
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This is going to turn out bad, no matter what the Court does.
All according to plan.
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roscoe, I believe there has been more recent research done on the issue with regard to present-day inmate populations. But I may be wrong.
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but those fears fell on deaf ears, a current employee on the department’s cybersecurity team told Al Jazeera America on Tuesday.
That may be the scariest part of that post. What is the State Department doing talking to Al Jazeera when they won’t talk to Fox?
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Prison Fellowship Ministries is where I think I saw something cited, it wasn’t the report you mentioned however. 🙂
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Spotted a journalist blog the other day by a reporter who worked briefly for Al Jazeera but said the imposed political agenda there was simply too much for him, he left after a short time.
.
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According to Wikipedia, Carson is 7th Day Adventist:
Carson and his wife, Lacena “Candy” Rustin, met in 1971 as students at Yale University. They married in 1975 and have three sons: Ben Jr., Rhoeyce, and Murray. They live in West Friendship, Maryland and are members of the Seventh-day Adventist Church
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http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/03/04/you-better-believe-hillary-clinton-s-emails-matter.html
“While it is too early to say whether this incident of using a private email account to conduct official business as America’s top diplomat will derail Clinton’s political ambitions, one question hangs over this affair: Are the American people prepared to return to the days of legal hair-splitting, quibbling about what the term “is” is and other flim-flam language designed to obfuscate should the Clintons return once again to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue? I hope that answer is a resounding No.”
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I hope we can enter 2017 without any Clintons or Bushes.
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